As the second part of a year-long six-part series, sponsored by the Center of Jewish Studies and the Department of Religion and Classics, called “Conversations on Israel, Palestine, and the War in Gaza,” Swarthmore College Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies Sa’ed Atshan spoke with the University’s Stefanie Dunning, Director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies.
The talk, held on Monday, Nov. 4, was a place for Atshan to share his book, Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, and ask how national movements can strike a balance in the liberation efforts of other marginalized communities.
Atshan contended the connection between the fight for queer freedom and Palestinian freedom, despite the beliefs of some who say otherwise, claiming they aim to eliminate oppressive systems to live with dignity and comfort.
The queer Palestinian movement was a result of the Palestinian feminist movement, Atshan asserted, connecting the two with a homogenous question: Which liberation, either the one of the nation or that of the community, should come first?
“[Palestinian women] reached a near consensus that those two struggles are inextricably linked, and are equal priorities, and cannot be divorced — national liberation against Israeli settler colonialism, and military occupation and the struggle for women’s rights, and the dignity of women and internal systems of oppression within Palestinian society.”
According to Atshan, lesbian feminist Palestinian women drove the conception of the queer movement in Palestine in the early 2000s, sparking another debate on whether queer liberation or national liberation should take priority. Although some purists argue that fighting imperialism ought to be the priority before addressing internal issues, he insisted national liberation should not be the holdup for queer individual liberation.
“Decolonization is necessarily queer,” Atshan said. “The forces of Zionism, and the forces of homophobia and patriarchy, are acting upon our bodies and ourselves simultaneously.”
Queerness in the occupation is often displayed through imagery, such as when Khaled Jarrar, a Palestinian visual artist, painted the West Bank barrier with the colors of the pride flag in 2015, after which Palestinian men painted it over with white.
Discussion flared among Palestinian youth over whether the wall should remain gray and unpleasant as part of its unjust aesthetic structure or whether they are entitled to use forms of art to cope with its burdensome as part of hope and the path to freedom and resistance.
A dichotomy with Israel and Palestine on opposite sides also exists, Atshan noted.
“[Some view] the former [Israel] as a gay haven in utopia and the latter [Palestine] as a deep homophobic and backward place.”
This narrative is often used by followers of the right-wing Israeli government to divert attention from Israel’s infringements of Palestinian human rights to an alleged advanced LGBTQ+ rights record in Israel, Atshan said.
He reiterated that the situation is more complex, given both societies have a queer continuum and spectrum. Although pride parades occur in Israel, so do hate crimes, such as at the Jerusalem gay pride parade.
Atshan emphasized the inaccuracy of believing that only one emotion, either love or hate, exists in each society. Instead, Atshan said both queer empowerment and homophobia exist in Israel and Palestine and then gave an example of the dehumanization of Palestinians that was in an interview about a pornographic film where the creator, Michael Lucas, said that the Israeli men “shot their seeds” all over an abandoned Palestinian village.
By doing this, he claimed that they engaged in desecration porn, degrading and pinkwashing Palestinians to the point where people will consume it without giving it much thought.
“There is this attempt to draw attention to Israel as this queer, erotic, utopian sphere, [and] to pinkwash away the bodies, the spirits, the boasts of Palestinians who are being systematically met with death and destruction in this particular zone,” Atshan said.
Atshan concluded that for the queer Palestinian movement to reach its full potential, radical political commitments must continue to transcend traditional boundaries. He urged activists to maintain a certain amount of radical purism and emphasized the importance of coalition building in achieving both liberations without sacrificing the core goals of either.
